Food for Thought

Week 5: Tuesday, February 11

Largely the result of miscalculation on the part of Napoleon III (upper left) and his Foreign Minister, the Duc de Gramont, the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871) led to the fall of the Second Empire. The war's impact went far beyond the deposition of Napoleon III, however, for it touched the lives of French people everywhere.

One of those people was Edouard Dubrulle (1848-1887), my great-great-grandfather. Referred to as a mécanicien (a machinist) in various documents, he worked at a coal mine in Noeux-les-Mines in Northern France. Unable to furnish a substitute, he was called up in 1870 and served with the 70th Line Regiment. Before leaving home, he had his picture taken (upper right). Reaching the frontier in August 1870, he saw action with the French VI Corps at the two greatest battles of the war: Mars la Tour-Vionville (August 16, 1870) and Gravelotte-Saint Privat (August 18, 1870). At the latter clash, in an attempt to dislodge the VI Corps from a strong defensive position on a ridge surrounding the village of Saint Privat, the Prussian Royal Guard lost 8,000 casualties in twenty minutes. The hard-fought battle continued to the end of the day when Saxon forces eventually outflanked the French position and forced the VI Corps to retreat. Edouard, who was in the thick of the fighting, later wrote that he would remember the battlefield at Saint Privat "for the rest of my life—one could not see anything more terrible and more grandiose in its horror."

Having lost both battles, the French army, along with Edouard, soon found itself besieged in the fortress town of Metz, cut off from all sources of information and supply. The French were quickly reduced to eating horse meat. On September 10, Edouard and his fellow soldiers found some newspapers on a German prisoner that revealed the "shameful shame" of the French defeat at Sedan, the capture of Napoleon III, and the proclamation of a republic in Paris. Throughout the siege, the French attempted to send messages to the outside world by balloon. Edouard wrote: "I was almost crying when I mailed quite a number of little paper squares, so precious for the persons who are dear to me, and hoped that by God's grace they would reach their destination." Illness became rampant, and French attempts to break out of the encirclement proved unavailing. As Edouard and his comrades heard about riots and Socialist uprisings in other French towns, they became even more demoralized. "France," he commented, "has fallen in the most complete anarchy. . . . The red flag has been flown in Lyon, Bordeaux, Marseilles, Le Havre, and Rouen." On October 27, 1870, Marshal Bazaine, the commander of the French army in Metz, surrendered to the Prussians. Edouard complained that during the surrender, he and his friends had to march "like criminals" in front of Prussian troops.

The Prussians transported Edouard and other French prisoners of war by train to Kozle, a small town in eastern Silesia (now a part of Poland). Confined to an island in the middle of a swamp, Edouard suffered from hardship and ill-health throughout this captivity. In March 1871, Edouard and his fellow prisoners heard of France's surrender and impatiently awaited their return home. As he put it: "It is with hearts full of hate that we shall leave this country where we found nothing but deprivation and indignity." Returning to France, Edouard started a new life. He married Victorine Beugnet in 1875, and they had three children: Aurelie (1876-1960), Augustin (1879-1938), and Edmond (1882-1883). Unfortunately, Edouard had contracted tuberculosis during his captivity in Kozle and died in 1887, a little over three weeks past his 39th birthday.

1) According to Louis-Napoleon, what were the foundations or rocks of the old regime before 1789? What did he believe should constitute the foundations of a government in his day?

2) What did Louis-Napoleon think were the causes of "discomfort" in his own day?

3) What seems to be the "Napoleonic idea"?

4) In what ways does Wright, the author of your textbook, think the regime of Napoleon III was inconsistent and paradoxical?